Georgia QB Aaron Murray was shorter than I anticipated, but he was outstanding during Saturday night’s throwing session. This junior is a good inch shorter than senior counterparts Barkley and Wilson, but he matched them throw for throw. He has very clean footwork in his drops, as well as a compact delivery. Murray can generate a lot of velocity and his accuracy was excellent at all three levels. I was surprised at how powerfully he threw the deep ball. Murray had as much range as any quarterback at the camp.

Oh, and about that quarterback who smoked Murray off the field two springs ago?

LSU QB Zach Mettenberger is a very big man. He is at least 6-5 and he could easily carry 240 pounds on his frame. His delivery can get long at times, but he has outstanding arm strength. Mettenberger threw a beautiful deep ball during Saturday’s workout. His accuracy and touch underneath are both works in progress entering his junior season.

Count Matt Hayes in the group that thinks those powerhouse Big 12 offenses are destined to flop in the SEC.

The SEC is all about controlling tempo on both sides of the ball.

On offense, that means a power run game. This, of course, is foreign to both Missouri (four and five-wide, no fullback) and Sumlin’s pass-happy teams at Houston (and now at Texas A&M).

Both Sumlin and Pinkel said in June that playing in the SEC won’t change their style of play. That’s what Urban Meyer said, too. Then he lost three games in his first season at Florida because he couldn’t get tough yards by spreading the defense and finding seams.

A year later, his spread offense suddenly became an option-heavy, power run game with a 245-pound quarterback bulldozing opponents and setting up quick, change of pace tailbacks.

You’re not surviving in the SEC without a lead blocking fullback and/or a tight end. And neither Missouri nor Texas A&M has a true lead-blocking fullback on the roster.

Ummm… maybe. His Florida example is a bit strained – Tebow played in 2006, when the Gators won a national title, but didn’t become the starter until the following year. It wasn’t so much that Florida’s offense was remade into a power attack as that Tebow’s attributes uniquely fitted the scheme (and even then, note what happened to the offense after Harvin and Mullen left). But as far as survival goes, Florida never had a lead blocking fullback or tight end who played a significant role in Meyer’s offense.

That all being said, it’s clear that the current trend in the conference is towards the power running schemes Hayes tips his cap to. Florida and Auburn have gone that way. Spurrier has remade his offense in that direction.

But I can’t help keep hearing that Mumme siren song. The Air Raid has worked before in the SEC. Have things changed that much in fifteen years? We’ll see what TAMU, Missouri and Ole Miss have to say about operating a pass-oriented spread attack. All I can say is it’ll be a shame if Hayes is completely right about this, because it’ll make for a more boring conference.

And speaking of ESPN, the big news about the ginormous new contract it’s signed for the Rose Bowl broadcast rights through 2026 isn’t what that portends for how much the playoff broadcast rights are worth or the value of the Champions Bowl’s TV rights (although Slive is probably pinching himself over his good fortune there). No, it’s that the WWL is sending a clear message to its rivals that it won’t be a pushover as all these new postseason deals come up for negotiation.

Consider what it’s committed itself to with the Rose Bowl: “The Rose Bowl’s new $80 million annual rights fee represents a 167 percent jump from the $30 million the network currently pays.” [Emphasis added.] That’s for a game that in many years is going to have a reduced importance as the new four-team playoff takes hold.

Expect more preemptive bids. And expect that ESPN’s influence over the college game won’t miss a beat.

Okay, so the selection committee is shaping up to be more of the same. But at least we can console ourselves with the knowledge that the NCAA is going to whip those bowl requirements into shape. No more of those mediocre 6-6 teams showing up at the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl to sully our December view… er, what’s that you say, Jim Delany?

Speaking of numbers, it had been almost assumed that college football officials would require bowl-bound teams, beginning in 2014, to win seven games. Delany and others are wary of bowls that feature 6-6 teams with fired coaching staffs playing in half-empty stadiums.

But Delany said he has “heard from friends in different parts of the country, some of the major conferences, that they are in favor of (keeping it at) six. I suggested that maybe there’s middle ground. If a program hasn’t been to a bowl in five years … it’s an exciting thing.”

“We’ll have to sit down and talk about what would be an appropriate number” for the committee, said Slive, who chaired the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee for the 2008-09 season. “There have been different numbers floated around — 16, 20. We certainly want to have enough members of the committee so that when certain committee members have to recuse themselves, we still have a significant group of people considering all the data and evaluating the teams. [Emphasis added.]

Yep, they’re going to replace the current animal – you know, the one everyone complains about being biased and having conflicts of interest – with one that’s openly structured to admit that it’s subject to bias and conflicts. But don’t worry. They’ll have very strict rules and guidelines in place to direct how the voters compile their ballots.

”I visualize it working not unlike the men’s basketball committee that I was on and chaired for a year. You have both data and statistics and information, and then you couple that with what you see.“

Well, at least they won’t be turning the ballots over to SIDs to vote in their names. That’s progress, friends.